It feels like only yesterday that the SEIU propelled the Fight For $15 initiative in several industries. Now, the union is at the forefront of a legislative push toward a $25 minimum wage for California’s healthcare workers by 2025. Oddly enough, that bill sits alongside a potential TikTok ban, so at least 2023 does not cease to have a sense of humor.
We didn’t have to wait long to see this idea spread from Labor Lab, CA (zip code unknown) to other areas. In Connecticut, the SEIU has been pitching the “Pathway To 25” initiative, and police arrested 58 protesters who blocked traffic over the issue. This dust-up was part of a strike that’s now in Week 3 with 1,700 workers on the picket lines.
Additionally, this is only one of 85 strikes since 2021 in the healthcare industry – a realm where collateral damage from Big Labor is not an exaggerated portrayal.
2023 began with a bang for healthcare strikes, too. In January, National Nurses United called for rallies across the U.S. over, and in New York, 7,000 nurses embarked upon a three-day strike, which resulted in 19% raises for workers at two major medical centers.
Judging from this month’s crop of updates, the picket lines will not slow down. Granted, the below Texas strike pales in worker volume to the NY strike mentioned above, but the collective amount of healthcare upheaval remains worth noticing.
Let’s take a tour of U.S. healthcare upheaval this month:
- Texas: 900 nurses at Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin overwhelmingly voted to authorize what would be “the largest nurses strike in Texas history.” This followed eight months of bargaining, after which the union and the health care system only agreed on 3 out of 40 demands. This won’t be the most heavily populated healthcare strike of the year, but one cannot ignore it.
- Kansas: A strike authorization vote could soon put 650 nurses on the picket lines at Ascension Via Christi St. Francis in Wichita.
- More from California: 1,300 workers at UCSF Children’s Hospital Oakland voted to authorize a 3-day strike.
- Washington: 170 workers went on strike as EvergreenHealth Monroe contract talks continue with SEIU.
- Ohio: Cincinnati VA nurses rallied over union accusations that VA police have intimidated nurses who push for improved patient ratios and higher wages.
- Minnesota: SEIU 300 Mayo Clinic surgery workers accused their employer of “downright greed” by declining to increase their wages.
In slightly brighter news, Lifelong Medical Clinics averted a planned June 5 strike that could have shut down up to 17 clinics throughout the Bay Area for two days.
Meanwhile, the University Of Pittsburgh Medical Center is the subject of an antitrust complaint from workers, who allege that their own healthcare insurance requires them to use UPMC facilities, causing them to rack up medical debt with their own employer.
As always, unions remain pleased to take advantage of this industry’s perfect storm, which includes worker shortages and budget shortfalls. That temperature keeps rising.
